Without Sin (An Owen Day Thriller)

by Rachel Ford

  After about three or four seconds of this, I knocked, rapping my knuckles hard against the steel door and holding his gaze while I did it. He jumped, like I’d startled him. Then he gulped, glanced around, and dropped the curtain.

  I half suspected I might not see him again, as agitated as he was acting. But the door opened slowly, first a crack, and then a foot. A thick wall of smoke hit me: marijuana smoke, mostly, I thought.

  I took a step back. I didn’t need a secondhand high, and with the concentration that was leaking out of the garage at the moment, it seemed a real possibility.

  I got a better look at the kid as he stepped into the light. He was in his early twenties somewhere, thin and tall – maybe six inches taller than Megan. But their resemblance was unmistakable. He had the same eyes and the same shade of blond hair.

  He didn’t have her sense of style, though. That was for sure. Not unless Megan had suddenly embraced week-old t-shirts and jeans that hadn’t been washed since they’d been purchased.

  I was almost happy for the smoke, because it meant I didn’t have to smell anything else that might be wafting on the air. And I was quite sure there’d be plenty wafting.

  “Who are you?” the kid asked.

  “Who are you?” I said.

  He cracked a lopsided grin. “Depends whose asking.”

  “You’re Jason,” I said. “Right? Jason Rathe?” I’d never met Jason Rathe, but I knew Megan had a young brother, and I knew his name was Jason.

  And the look of consternation that flashed across his face answered my question, though it raised ones of its own. Like, why the hell was he scared of being recognized?

  Because he clearly was. His eyes went wide, and he threw a glance back at the garage, like he was thinking of retreating back there. But he must have thought better, because he glanced to the backyard first, and then the driveway.

  “You…you a cop?”

  “Would it matter if I was?”

  He blinked, passed a hand over his face, and said, “You, uh…you got a search warrant?”

  “I don’t need a search warrant.”

  Which was technically true. I wasn’t here to search, so I didn’t need a warrant. But he was obviously rattled by the idea of the cops being here. Considering that my brother – his brother-in-law had just been murdered, I was pretty keen to know why.

  He gulped, passed a dry tongue over his lips, and laughed. “Listen, man…you got the wrong guy.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You do.” He nodded, rocking a little on his heels. It wasn’t nervous energy, although he had plenty of that going on too. He was thinking of running. I could see it in his posture, and the sideways glances he kept throwing toward the truck. “For real. And you need a search warrant. You can’t just –”

  He didn’t finish. He glanced toward the back yard – a big, exaggerated movement – and then bolted in the opposite direction, down the walk and toward the old Ford.

  Chapter Four

  He got inside a second before I did, him in the driver’s seat and me on the passenger side. He was reaching for the ignition. I reached for him, seizing his wrist just as he got the key in.

  For the third time, he seemed visibly startled, like he hadn’t expected me to catch up with him, much less so quickly.

  “Dude,” he said. “You got the wrong guy.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. I had no idea what he was talking about. The more I saw this kid, the less I thought he had anything to do with my brother’s death. But bluffing seemed to be the most straightforward way to get to the bottom of it. Whatever it was.

  He gulped, licked his lips again, and pulled at his wrist. Then he slumped back in his seat. “Alright, yeah. It was me. But it’s not what it looked like. I just didn’t have any paper on me, so I couldn’t leave a note. But I was going to go back there tonight, and see if I could find the owner, you know? Make things right?”

  Then, he frowned. “How’d you guys even find me, anyway?”

  I stared at him, trying to make sense of the words. “Paper?”

  “Yeah…look, the thing is…I don’t actually have insurance. So I was going to try to work out some kind of payment plan.”

  I let go of his wrist. “A hit and run?”

  “I barely touched the car, man. Come on.”

  I shook my head at him. “Where’s Megan?”

  “Oh God, you’re not going to tell my sister? Don’t do that. I’m good for the money, I swear. Not right away. I gotta get a job first. But I’m working on that.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Look, man, I’m here on, like, a probationary period, okay? If you tell her – I’ll be out on my ass. And now’s really not a good time. She just lost her husband, you know? That serial killer, the freak with the rhymes they keep talking about online?” Here, he dragged his right forefinger across his throat. “He took Andy out.”

  I felt sick. Maybe it was sitting in the truck, with the smell of oil and gas and smoke and sweat all around. I held up a hand to silence his babbling. “I’m not the cops. I’m Andy’s brother.”

  His face relaxed with relief, and then contorted with annoyance. “Jesus Christ, dude. You gave me a fucking heart attack.”

  I didn’t point out that that was extremely unlikely. That, if he’d suffered any kind of perceptible heart attack, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I just said, “Where’s Megan?”

  “Not here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That church, her and Andy’s church: one of her friends showed up and picked her and the kids up. They’re holding some kind of…I don’t know…prayer vigil thing. To help the cops find the killer or some shit.”

  “Where?”

  “At the church, I guess. I didn’t really ask.” He shrugged. “Figured it was safer that way.”

  “Safer?”

  “She’s always trying to get me to go. To ‘save my soul’ or whatever. It’d be hard to say no now. You know, when they’re praying to find her husband’s killer?”

  “You know when they’ll be back?”

  “No idea.”

  I nodded. Then I leaned in, pulled the key out of the ignition, and said, “I’m going to go to a prayer vigil. You can come with me. You’ll have to shower first, and change.”

  He wrinkled his nose and reached for the key fob. “Hell no.”

  “Okay. Then…” I held the keys up, out of his reach. “You can get these back from Megan, whenever she gets home.”

  He frowned at me. “What?”

  “You’re way too high to be behind the wheel.”

  “Jesus, what are you? My mother? Give ‘em back.”

  He reached again, but without any luck. “Look, I don’t know what your dynamic is,” I said. “Maybe she’d be happy to get rid of you. But if not, this is no time for you to die or wind up going to prison for killing someone while driving under the influence.”

  I stepped out of the pickup and slipped the keys into my pocket. “So I’ll be giving these to her when I see her. At the prayer vigil.”

  He came with me after all. I waited while he showered and changed into clothes that had been washed sometime in the last month. I hoped she’d show up before then. Waiting for Jason gave me a legitimate reason to be there. But it would have been easier to meet her here.

  She didn’t show up, though. So when he came out, smelling better but looking a lot higher than we’d parted, we headed out. There was more than pot in his stash. That was for damned sure.

  He was way too relaxed and way too easygoing. Gone was the nervousness and the defensiveness. Gone was the dread about sitting through the vigil. Gone too was his anger at me.

  Unfortunately. He wanted to talk, now, though he rarely required an answer on my part. “It’s real good of you to show up like this. I know you two didn’t see eye-to-eye. You weren’t even at their wedding, were you? I wasn’t either. That’s cause I was in juvie.” He laughed at that, like there was some joke I
was missing.

  “But she’ll be happy to see you. I know she will.”

  He lapsed into silence for a spell. A too-short spell. “She really loved Andy. You know that?”

  “I know,” I said.

  “I didn’t understand it.”

  “Me either.”

  “He was always kind of an asshole. No offense.”

  “None taken,” I said. Because, it was true. “But I think they were the right kind of asshole for each other.”

  He took umbrage with that, for a brief moment: the whole don’t talk about my sister that way kind of thing. Then, he descended into a fit of giggles. “Who am I kidding? She is an asshole. But then, I’m an asshole too.”

  “No argument from me.”

  “I’ll bet you’re an asshole too.”

  “No argument from me,” I said again.

  He laughed and nodded. “We’re all assholes. Everyone’s always looking for some kind of meaning in life. Andy, Megan, everyone. But that’s the big secret, isn’t it, the big answer everyone’s looking for? We’re all assholes. That’s it: that’s the moral of the story.”

  “You’re a real philosopher.”

  He nodded slowly, to himself, like he’d stumbled on some deep truth. Then he changed the topic. “What did you guys fight about, anyway?”

  “I don’t remember,” I said.

  He looked me up and down, skepticism in his expression. “That’s what she said.”

  “Well, it must not have been very important then, must it?”

  “Of course it was important.”

  I shrugged. “If you say so, Jason.”

  “I remember all our fights, mine and Megan’s. And mine and mom’s. And mine and dad’s.” He sighed, shaking his head.

  I said nothing, hoping he’d shut the hell up already.

  He didn’t. Instead, he started telling me about the fights: about the cars he’d wrecked, and the jobs he’d lost, and the brawls he’d been involved in. He told me he’d been arrested six – “seven, if you count that one time in Canada” – times. He told me that he’d been innocent each time. He laughed when he said it.

  Kennington changed around us as he prattled on. We retraced my earlier route, back through the historical district, and back down Main Street, past the police station and the city hall, past the cafes and restaurants and little shops.

  We got to the newer end of town, where the lots were bigger and spread out more, where there was more landscaping and less congestion.

  Then I turned down a street called Cherrybrick Lane. Which to my mind should have implied the presence of some kind of cherry-colored brick – maybe those red brick sidewalks, or brick buildings, or something. But there were no bricks of any color to be seen, and no cherry trees or cherry-red colors.

  Instead, Cherrybrick Lane was a cul-de-sac leading to a veterinarian’s clinic, a doctor’s office, and a massive warehouse of a building behind an even larger parking lot. A large sign at the end of a recently paved drive proclaimed it to be the Kennington Church of the Faithful Savior.

  The sign was cheery and colorful, an eye-catching but well-balanced blend of bold and subtle. The lettering was big and bright. A squiggle figure, presumably meant to represent Jesus, stood by the words: just a continuous line, tracing out a vague humanoid shape with a glowing halo.

  The parking lot was about a third full. Impressive, considering the parking lot was probably five acres. There were about a football field’s worth of worshippers assembled.

  Jason shook his head. “I cannot believe I let you talk me into this, bruh.”

  “Did I take you from something more pressing?”

  He shot me a dirty look. But he stepped out of the vehicle, sucked in a lungful of fresh air, and, once I locked up, followed me toward the church.

  More than urgency brought me here. More than a civic duty to keep an impaired driver off the street had prompted me to bring Jason. Certainly more than any kind of familial tie.

  Jason was a stranger, and Megan? Well, The Bard had put it best: I do desire we may be better strangers.

  Or so I would have said before Andy died. But now, Andy was dead, and Megan and their kids were all that was left of him. And Megan had answers I needed.

  So I needed to do what I could to ensure the best possible outcome for our reunion. And I figured showing up with someone she loved would help.

  Assuming she did love Jason, which, after spending the last twenty minutes in a vehicle with him, I had to own was quite the assumption.

  But I’d stacked the deck in my favor. I was on her turf, just like I would have been at her house. But this was her church. She was the co-founder and assistant pastor. Andy’s right hand. They’d built this congregation from a few weirdos who believed in the healing power of crystals and Jesus, to a warehouse full of weirdos.

  The weird was on full display on the vehicles we passed. They spanned the spectrum: new and expensive, second hand and beat, domestic and foreign. There were two-seaters and SUV’s. There was a Mustang near the door, and a doobie van at the end of the cluster.

  The bumper stickers and window clings were where things got weird, though. There was the usual stuff about love and salvation, memory clings for departed loved ones, magnets declaring their love of cats or dogs, or cats and dogs, and plenty of stick figure families. There were a few peace and coexist stickers, and a Make Love Not War cling. All normal enough.

  But, often on the same vehicles, there were also stickers about the ‘truth’ about Big Pharma and Area 51. Big Oil and Big Agra had their mentions, and so did Monsanto and GMO’s. One Chevy Trailblazer displayed five bumper stickers’ worth of concern about cloning. The back hatch of an older black SUV with aftermarket tint on the windows had been turned into a wall of color and text – and conspiracies. Something to do with the cure for cancer and cannabis.

  There were political stickers too, some leftwing, some rightwing. Mostly, they seemed apathetic about the process in general. Jesus is in control, and Jesus is King, whoever is president, and Politicians represent us the way the Colonel represents chickens and so on.

  I didn’t linger for enlightenment. I avoided social media largely because I had no interest in complex issues reduced to bumper sticker-sized sound bites. I figured I was no more likely to stumble on the truth plastered to the back of someone’s SUV than shared in meme format.

  Still, I was glad to see all these vehicles. Each one represented people – at least one, sometimes more. Which meant there’d be a lot of witnesses to our reunion. And I was betting, throes of grief or not, she wouldn’t risk a major confrontation.

  There were churches where that might be alright. But not this one. Not hers. This wasn’t a fire and brimstone place. This was a forgiveness and the light of the holy spirit kind of church. “Make love, not war.” It was New Agey and non-denominational, and welcoming and forgiving to everyone.

  So throwing her grieving brother-in-law out on his ass in front of a third of the congregation would be impolitic.

  Or, that’s what I was counting on, anyway. Because I didn’t figure Megan would welcome me any other way. Not after our parting. Not after ten years of radio silence.

  I stepped inside the foyer and took stock of my surroundings. I’d been here a few times before, when Andy needed help with something. I’d carried sound equipment and lighting a time or two – and skulked off before the people showed up.

  I could smell faint smoke: sage and some kind of incense. Atypical for my visits, but certainly not the first time. The place looked exactly like I remembered, though: bright and cheery.

  Too bright. Too cheery.

  There were potted plants and some kind of interior Japanese rock garden in the center. White sand and gravel had been laid in a bed with foot-high, wooden borders, painted the same ashy white as the stone. Larger, darker stones had been arranged throughout in a way that seemed random to me. A bonsai tree sat in the center, in a dark pot.

  The arrangement mig
ht have had meaning. I didn’t know. Historically, there was some kind of zen aspect to these gardens, but I didn’t know much about it. Nor did I know if Andy and Megan had picked it for any significance beyond aesthetic.

  There were little hand rakes propped against the wooden barriers, so anyone could rake the gravel. Some parts had been managed by steady hands, and looked neat and orderly. Others looked like angry monkeys had been let loose on it, leaving grooves and chasms and piles of sand and gravel flung this way and that.

  It always looked like that – always different, but always somehow the same. It’s like a river, Andy had said once. You never know what it will look like at any one time. People come, they make their changes, they move on. Every day, every new hand: it’s never the same twice.

  The rest of the room had a bit more permanence. There was furniture along the walls and a row of shelves stocked full of pantry items. “Take what you need, leave what you can,” the sign said.

  Those had been there the last time I was here. Not the pantry items themselves, but the shelves and furniture.

  There were bathrooms off to one side, and kitchens and dining rooms. But I headed to the fellowship hall: the main part of the building, with the pews and pulpit and stage.

  The doors opened quietly. The sound of cymbals and low humming met my ears. The smell of smoke hit me, much stronger here. It wasn’t choking, like it had been in the garage with Jason.

  But that probably had more to do with the cubic footage than the quantity burned. They could have fit quite a few garages in here, especially if they stacked them on top of each other. The ceiling rose to a height of two or three normal stories.

  Which apparently helped with acoustics, but made heating a real problem. Andy hated getting the heating bills. But he’d known that going into building it.

  He wanted the building to evoke a sense of awe. He wanted coming here to be a spiritual experience. And I guess it worked. For all his griping about the cost, he swore he wouldn’t change a thing. You can literally hear the Holy Spirit at work, Owen.

  I didn’t know what the Holy Spirit sounded like, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t cymbals and group humming. But what did I know?